Industrial Workers of the World

Yes, her hands may be hardened from labor
And her dress may not be very fine;
But a heart in her bosom is beating
That is true to her class and her kind.
And the grafters in terror are trembling
When her spite and defiance she'll hurl; - Joe Hill


"All I want to say is a long life to the I.W.W. and onward the world to revolution." Violet Clarke Wilkins

In 1919 in Melbourne, they arrested Violet Clarke on charges relating to the Red Flag Campaign (for the bearing of the people’s standard had been made illegal during the war and many resisted the imposition). At one time, she had four summonses served on her at the same time. When she refused to plead, which was always, they put her in goal. The second time this happened she went on hunger strike and had her sentence shortened – a case of direct action getting the goods.

She was involved with the feminist Adela Pankhurst, with the socialists, with the anti conscription movement and with the IWW. A fellow worker in the IWW in Perth, Bill Mackay, passed on some of the stories Mrs Wilkins told him about her Melbourne days. “She was only young then of course but she was on the anti-conscription fight … she used to tell us about when the bloody police galloped into them two or three times - terrible! So they had a demonstration once when the churches were coming out and the big cathedral, and the bloody police, … rode into the congregation, and that stopped them.” Bill also says that she had a brother who fought and died in France. According to the story, her mother got a bill for the blanket in which they buried him

Violet Clarke Wilkins came with her husband Harry, a shoemaker, from Victoria to Western Australia in 1928 to try to revive the IWW here. Until the early 1940’s, she stood firm to the IWW line. Harry did spend some time in the Communist (“Comical”) Party until they expelled him for having the wrong general attitude. Violet was never tempted. She was a true daughter of the people. She was an anchorperson for the group as it involved itself in the protests and the sufferings of the unemployed during the great depression.

They were very articulate, with word and deed, against those, especially in the Labor Party and the Australian Workers Union, that battened onto those out of work As capitalism propelled civilisation to world war for a second time Violet was there in the struggles for peace and against conscription. She was arrested and jailed untold times during these years, as was her husband and other members of the group. Having little time for “parlour pinks”, they functioned much as an affinity group. They recruited those who could afford to be arrested and those they could trust and were content to let their example of direct action have its own effect.

The group folded in the early forties. The prison sentences grew longer. The society that could not afford to create jobs or look after families in peacetime suddenly had millions available for war and the unemployed were absorbed into the workforce.

The Wilkins went to Sydney where they, and especially Violet, are recorded as reviving the IWW in 1948. After this, I do not know what happened to Violet. Harry turns up in Perth again in the early fifties but seems to be alone.

Miek 342055